


Session Protocol

by cranialgames (superyuui)



Series: Output Calibration [2]
Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol, Blood, Established Relationship, F/M, Original Character(s), Post-Canon, Semi-Public Sex, Sex, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-08 16:17:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12868305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superyuui/pseuds/cranialgames
Summary: On the precipice of a permanent fix for the machines, Aloy is dragged into another war - one that has to be fought with politics instead of arrows. Out of her depth and in a foreign land, Aloy is alone amongst her closest allies.In the end, the cost for peace is as heavy as ever, and she just might end up paying for it with her heart.





	1. Crashing Not One Party, But Two

**Author's Note:**

> Aaah! Here it is!  
> Okay so I have much much much less of this already written than I had hoped I would by now but I’ve been waylaid by a modern AU idea and also by writing scenes from a third story - yes, a _third_ \- in this series.  
>  All of this story and the next one are outlined ([look at the note hell I am in](http://spooopygames.tumblr.com/post/168009887536/these-are-some-of-my-notes-for-the-sequel-to)) I just need to write and post. 
> 
> I’m so excited to share this with you, it’s all been planned since before I had finished AP and I have been itching to write it. I hope you enjoy reading :)

Aloy lay flat on her back, the grating of the metal floor digging into her shoulders. Her face itched, like something was smeared across it, and her hair was sticking to her forehead with sweat, even in the cool room.

“Is this the one?” she said, loosening a single wire from the others. There was a pause, and then, a voice that she knew only she could hear.

 _‘Yes, Doctor Sobeck,’_ the voice said to her, through her Focus. She sounded female, but the tone of her voice was flat and robotic, and it crackled in Aloy’s ear, ‘ _that is the fi-net cable.’_

“I told you to call me Aloy,” she grumbled. She grunted, stretching her arm out, reaching deeper into the underbelly of the console. She had spent the better part of a week at the Cauldron trying to improve its signal range, and this was the last repair she needed to make. “Where does it go?”

‘ _The fi-net cable connects to the ZN-60 port,’_

Aloy pursed her lips. “You know I don’t know what that is.”

 _‘It will be the empty port,’_ the voice added, helpfully. Aloy ground her teeth and located the only empty port and, lo and behold, the connector fit.

‘ _The fi-net cable has been connected to the console.’_ the voice reported. The sound quality had vastly improved almost immediately; nearly all of the crackling had disappeared. She still sounded robotic, and emotionless, but there wasn’t much that Aloy could do for that just yet.

Aloy planted her palms flat on the side of the console and heaved herself out from underneath it. In the corner of the room, her Broadhead watched her curiously, the beads draped around its neck knocking together as it angled its head towards her. Around the room, machines whirred and beeped, each one flashing with tiny lights. Aloy got to her feet and dusted herself off with equally dusty hands.

“How’s it looking?”

‘ _Communication range has greatly improved_ ,’ the voice said.

“Enough to reach Meridian?”

‘ _Detected that range reaches Lake Powell, thirty-six-point-five-_ ’

“Alright, I get it,” Aloy interrupted, “that sounds like it’s far enough. What time is it?”

‘ _Internal clock time is fourteen-forty-seven,_ ’ the voice stated, ‘ _sunset on third August thirty-forty-five is due in one hour and fifty-two minutes_.’

“Shit,” Aloy cursed. She clumsily hid her tools in a corner, where they were less likely to be stolen, and swung herself up onto the back of her Broadback. If that all worked, she wouldn’t have to worry about coming back for at least a few days. “Rho, resume machine printing in ten minutes.”

‘ _Yes, Doctor Sobeck,’_

Aloy kicked the Broadhead into motion, shouting over her shoulder as she went, “And shut the door, this time!”

 

* * *

 

By the time she cantered into the Maizelands, she looked positively feral. The wind had whipped her hair back and forth, and whatever was smeared on her face had gathered dirt and sand, and she was still somehow covered in dust. A promise, however, is a promise.

She moored the Broadhead up in the old spot for her Strider and jogged into the city. The sun had nearly finished its descent, and for her, keeping to the lengthening shadows was easy.

The city had healed well from the disappearance of the machines that had occurred a few months prior. Many less people had died than Aloy had initially thought, and after carefully working some machines through the streets to clear the waste and the filth, the city was practically sparkling clean again.

The downside, as there always was, was that some of the larger machines had started reappearing again in the North. Cauldron Rho, which Aloy frequented, was easy to manage, even if she did have to periodically turn it off and on again to keep it from creating viciously hostile machines. With her new modifications, she hoped to be able to force a reboot remotely. Her goal, in the end, was the get the Cauldrons self-sufficient again, and to reduce the risk to people. She hadn’t made much progress on that front in the months she had been working, but she had done better than she expected she would, coming from having no knowledge whatsoever.

Aloy paused in an archway while a couple of guards passed her by, chatting easily between each other. When they had gone, she scrambled up the wall of the building she had hidden against, using windowsills and gaps in the mortar as handholds. Carefully, quietly, she spotted her target: a partially-open window on the upper floor. She eased it open and slipped inside, easily picking around the room in the dark. She found a candle and matches exactly where she had left them, and clucked her tongue.

The water sitting in the stone butt out on the terrace was still warm from the sun, and Aloy was glad to scrub her face clean, finally identifying the uncomfortable greasy stain on her face to be machine blood. There wasn’t enough water to wash her hair - and besides, it wasn’t only hers to use - so she made do by reworking some of the looser braids and smoothing down the parts that stuck up awkwardly. She shed her sand-coated clothes with a feeling nothing short of relief, and fished a modest Carja dress from her drawer. It had taken her awhile to get used to the Carja fashion, and its lack of the heavy layers she had worn growing up, but in the heat of the desert, the light, flowing clothes were a blessing.

Aloy, finding that the front door was bolted shut from the outside, shimmied back out of the upstairs window again, dropping silently into the street below. She straightened out her clothes once more, and set off in the direction of the Sun-palace.

The palace was elaborately decorated on an ordinary day, but today was different.

Today was Itamen’s eleventh birthday, and the palace was lit up like the sun itself. Colourful banners hung from every windowsill, and the Circle was full of people celebrating, and the smell of wine and hot food. Aloy’s mouth watered and her stomach growled, reminding her that the last thing she had eaten was the last of her rations - stale bread, scarfed down while charging across the desert at full speed. Almost immediately, she joined the queue at the food tables and grabbed a plate for herself, piling it high with cooked chicken and dates and hard cheese, stealing a few morsels for herself while she waited for the line to crawl along. Someone serving wine filled a goblet for her, and as she reached out to grab it, it was snatched out of the air in front of her.

“I wondered if you were going to show up tonight.”

“You know me, I love a party,” she said flatly, glancing sideways up at Erend. He was in his armour, but someone had polished it, and forced him into a cleanly-pressed undershirt for the occasion. Aloy vaguely wondered if it had been Avad himself, and fought the ensuing smile off of her face.

“Two city guards mentioned seeing candlelight inside my house,” Erend said lightly, moving up in the queue alongside her, “you wouldn’t happen to know anything about it, would you?” he asked, the corners of his mouth quirked upwards into a teasing smile. He held her gaze for a moment before his eyes followed her figure downwards - into the dip of cleavage the dress revealed, and the way it cinched in at the waist and over her hips - until he visibly reigned himself in, and looked away from her again. The thrill in her blood was immediate.

“I can’t say I noticed anyone,” she said evenly, watching the knot in his throat bob as he drank from her goblet, “I was probably busy bathing.”

Erend choked, and she smiled triumphantly. Someone behind Aloy cleared their throat pointedly, and Erend guided her away from the queue with his hand in the small of her back. They were swallowed by the crowds, and for a few minutes, Aloy enjoyed watching the dancers gathered in the centre of the Circle with Erend at her side. All too soon, however, he leaned toward her surreptitiously.

“Avad wants to see us both, after all of this,” he said.

“No sneaking off, then.”

“As much as I would love to,” he replied. She looked up at him and caught him staring back at her, eyes burning with hunger. She felt all at once all of the pent-up frustration of a week spent apart, and distracted herself with some of the dates on her plate. Being this close to her lover and being unable to do so much as have a normal conversation with him out in the open was maddening.

“I need to get back,” Erend said suddenly, closer than she had expected. She masked the shiver under her skin by stealing the goblet back from him, somewhat annoyed to find it already empty. Erend touched her arm, and for a split-second leaned closer. He caught himself, jerking away from her as if burned, before clearing his throat.

“Don’t disappear; Avad was pretty serious.”

Aloy exhaled loudly through her nose, and said nothing either way.

The rest of the party passed without incident. Aloy spent her time with Talanah and her girlfriend and watching Erend out of the corner of her eye, up on the palace terrace with Avad and some nobles. The goblet of wine he had stolen from her hadn’t seemed to have affected him; he was stood as solid and unflinching as stone. The lustful part of her that had awoken under his hands wanted nothing more than to steal him away from the party and find a secluded corner somewhere.

Ylma excused herself, and Talanah sidled up closer to Aloy. She said nothing, just sat with her chin resting on her fist, a sly grin on her face.

“What?” Aloy eventually asked.

“Nothing,” Talanah chirped, “you’re incredibly distracted.”

“I don’t like parties,”

“Sure, except, Ylma asked if you liked the food, and you mumbled something that sounded like ‘a whole week’, so...”

Aloy felt her face grow as hot as forgefire, and shoved Talanah’s shoulder, “I didn’t.”

“You’ve been staring at Erend as if he’s forgotten to get dressed this morning,” Talanah replied, “which, gross, by the way.”

“His… beard is uneven,” Aloy lied, taking a sip of her replenished goblet of wine. Talanah raised her eyebrow, clearly unfooled, and Aloy kept her expression carefully neutral.

“Whatever, just remind me to not visit you too early tomorrow.”

Aloy smiled, chewing on another date. Around her, the people of upper Meridian mingled without a care in the world, trading gossip like shards. Aloy had been raised separate from any kind of society, and even her birthdays had been livelier than this.

“I thought I saw that red crown of yours down here, huntress,” said Vanasha, appearing on Aloy’s vacant side, breathtakingly gorgeous in purple silk and golden jewellery, “are you enjoying the party?”

Aloy wondered if Vanasha would be offended by her real opinion of the party. “It’s… stifling.”

Vanasha and Talanah shared an amused look between themselves, and Vanasha swept some of Aloy’s hair back over her shoulder. “Good,” she said, “I’ve been sent to your aid, after all.”

“You have?” Aloy asked, eyes widening briefly in surprise. Her gaze darted up to the terrace again, unbidden, and she practically _felt_ Talanah smirk at her.

“Will you be joining us?”

“Can’t,” Talanah answered Vanasha’s question regretfully, “appearances.”

Vanasha nodded, as if the vague answer meant anything to her - as if she had expected it, even - and extended her hand for Aloy to take. Aloy glanced up at the terrace again to catch Erend staring right back at her, the yearning in his eyes palpable even from such a distance, and she felt her belly leap in excitement.

Before she left, Aloy leaned down to speak directly into Talanah’s ear, grinning wickedly. “You might not want to visit tomorrow at all.”

 

* * *

 

 

Aloy had expected Vanasha to escort her up onto the terrace with the nobles - a prospect that made her want to wriggle out of her skin like a lizard, if it would get her out of having to go up there - and she was surprised when she was lead not upstairs to the main terrace, but down the steps of the Circle, and back through the city.

The sound of voices and soft music from Itamen’s party followed them through the streets of the city, and the further away they walked, the more Aloy began to wonder where Vanasha was taking her.

“What, was I so bad at being at celebrating that you’re taking me out of the city?” Aloy remarked when Vanasha turned the corner towards the elevators.

“Nothing at all like that, little firework,” Vanasha said, closing the elevator doors behind her. She pulled the lever with a soft grunt, and they began their descent down the mesa. Aloy let her gaze drift across the Maizelands, and she frowned, catching sight of a large area in the village, well-lit in the night.

“What’s that? Another party?”

“You have eyes like a Glinthawk,”

Aloy looked back at Vanasha with her nose wrinkled, “You got me out of one party to take me to another party?”

“Don’t be so quick to form an opinion,” Vanasha chided gently, “you might find it much more to your taste.”

“Is that an evasive way of calling me ‘common’?”

Vanasha have Aloy an impatient look. Aloy held her stare with one equally sharp, and Vanasha sighed.

“It’s an evasive way of saying you looked like you were about to die of boredom, and I wanted to do you a favour.”

Aloy probably would have preferred going back and sitting in the dark in Erend’s house alone to going to another party, but Vanasha wasn’t an enemy she wanted to make, and she figured she’d probably griped enough already to make her opinion clear.

On the Sun-Prince’s birthday, everyone must celebrate.

The Maizeland party was much louder than the one at the Circle, even from a distance. Aloy could hear the clang of metal drums and people laughing - even the music seemed to be much more lively and energetic.

Vanasha paused in the road when they were within sight of the party.

“This is where I leave you,”

“You’re not coming?”

“Huntress, I would not be able to attend an Oseram party even if the Sun-king himself was there,” Vanasha said with amusement, “you, on the other hand, have been expressly invited, and it would be a shame not to enjoy yourself tonight.”

Sometimes Aloy wished she didn’t have to deal with the indirect way that Vanasha and Marad spoke, but a larger part of her was resigned in the knowledge that this, unfortunately, was what the Carja were like. All feathers, and no beak.

An Oseram party, though. It would probably be much more fun than the one up at the Circle.

“Is Erend coming?” Aloy asked before she could think to stop herself. Vanasha smiled at her like she knew everything - which, she probably did - and shook her head, her golden jewellery singing.

“He has his duties tonight, I’m afraid. He will come and find you when it is time for us all to meet with the Sun-king.”

Vanasha bid Aloy a good night and took her leave, leaving Aloy to face down the raucous gathering alone. The Oseram were much easier to deal with than the Carja - after all, Aloy was better with fists than words - but the nerves were still there. She held her head high and strode in amongst them as if she belonged, and thankfully, mercifully, they welcomed her with open arms.

Some of them literally.

“It’s so good to see you again,” Vern cheered, his heavy arm sling over her shoulders and his eyes unfocused. He was swinging around an empty tankard, and Aloy wondered how many more he had had, “everybody, look! It’s Aloy!”

The nearest of the gathered Oseram cheered along with him, and before she could do so much as open her mouth, tankards full of ale were pressed into each of her hands. Someone within the crowd raised their ale high and shouted her name, followed closely by the others in a thunderous roar. They all drank deeply and, with nothing better to do, she joined them.


	2. Off-duty, Technically

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm earning that E rating with this one, lads.
> 
> **if you're not here for the porn, it's pretty skippable at this point and doesn't tie in with the plot just yet :)

Despite her complaining, Aloy found that she did enjoy herself at the Oseram party. It was incredibly raucous and wild, and after a few drinks, she even began to feel like wasn’t sticking out like a sore thumb. She played drinking games with the Vanguard, laughed at the ridiculous stories the men told, and even danced until the clearing swam in her vision.

After a while, the crowd of people started to thin, with some going back to their homes and some simply passing out wherever they rested for too long. The bonfire burned low and the music had long stopped. Erend eventually came for her, pulling her away from the most disastrous game of cards that had ever probably been played, smiling ruefully at her as she staggered alongside him.

“Did you enjoy yourself?” He asked when they came to wait at the elevators. Aloy, nestled under his arm, smiled and nodded.

“Consider Itamen’s birthday properly celebrated,” she said, slurring a little, before eyeing him with a mischievous smirk, “are you on duty right now? Technically?”

“Not technically, no,”

“Well, in that case,” she said, “consider it _almost_ properly celebrated.”

Her hand found its way to his ass, which she grabbed firmly. She felt him tense in surprise, and glance down at her again.

“Avad really has asked for us,” he warned, smiling lopsidedly as she wormed her way between him and the closed doors of the elevator shaft.

“I thought that was just a lie to get me alone,” Aloy purred, pressing herself up against him, her hands smoothing up his thick biceps, “nobody’s around… who knows what two _technically_ off-duty people could get up to.”

“By the forge, you’re insatiable,” he said under his breath. She angled her head back so that their lips were barely apart.

“I’ve had a whole week to go… unsatiated,”

“That’s not a word,” he murmured, grinning.

“Satiate me,”

“You’re way too drunk for this meeting,”

“I’m not drunk,” Aloy protested with scrunched-up eyes, “I’m _celebrating.”_

She looped her arms around his broad shoulders, and pulled him down to kiss her. His hands went to her sides immediately, and she could feel the warmth from them seeping into her skin through the silken fabric of her dress. His armour was solid and unyielding against her, and she wanted nothing more than to ignore Avad’s summons, drag Erend home and spend the rest of the night underneath him.

He pushed her backwards and she allowed him, her boots clunking on the raised wooden floor, and he pushed her until her back came into contact with the inside wall of the elevator. She moaned, shivering with adrenaline. The elevator started to move upwards and his hands slid down to squeeze her backside, and pull her harder against his body. She moaned again, louder, and he pulled away, his chest heaving raggedly for breath.

His eyes were black in the inky shadows of the mesa, and she suddenly felt the same urgency she had felt the first time they had mated. She yanked him down to her again and kissed him harder, her teeth biting at his lips. She felt his answering moan rumble through his chest, and moments after his hand disappeared from her ass she felt a jolt. She broke the kiss and opened her eyes to see his fist curled around the interior lever of the elevator, which was stood perpendicular to the wall. The elevator had stopped its ascent of the mesa, and just as she managed to process what that meant, his other hand fell to the ties on his trousers. He tugged at them jerkily, and when they were loose enough, pulled himself free. Aloy felt an answering thrill in her belly and her heart pounding inside her ribs.

“We have to be quick,” He ground out. She nodded and braced herself with her hands on his shoulders, lifting herself up higher against his body. Her legs came around either side of his hips, and he pushed the hem of her dress up with rushed, shaking fingers. He groaned when the head of his penis touched her, and for a moment he teased her, rubbing it up and down so that it slipped through her lips. She dug her fingernails into the nape of his neck.

“Quick,” she reminded him with a grunt. He snapped his hips forward once the head was inside her, filling her with one quick, smooth motion, and swallowing her loud gasp with his mouth.

He began to thrust without pause, the constant movement of him within her making her head spin. She gave as good as she got, using the strength in her legs to assist his fast rhythm. The metal of the elevator bit into her shoulders and he was pressing into her so hard she could barely draw a full breath but nothing was more pressing than the feeling of him within her, pushing and pushing and pushing until she was dizzy and gasping with every frenzied thrust.

She had spent a week away from him at Cauldron Rho, and masturbating morning and evening had not nearly been enough to quench the ache inside her. A week away, and she had wanted him the whole time.

“You’re so wet,” he growled, “ _fire and spit_ , you’re so _wet_ ,”

“I thought about this, every day,” she said, no idea how much of it was intelligible through her moaning and panting. His cock was sliding against her clit with every thrust, and she felt her body tense for the final climb.

“Did you touch yourself?”

“I barely did anything else,”

Erend groaned loudly, his legs shaking thunderously. “I’m there,” he choked, “Aloy-“

“Yes,” she answered, cresting the rise of her own orgasm, “ _Yes-“_

Erend came within her, his cock jerking, and she soon followed. He rode them through their orgasms, shaking right through from the effort of keeping them upright.

Aloy slowly caught her breath, her cheek on his shoulder. She wriggled, and let him fall from her body as she unwrapped her legs from around his hips, carefully transferring her weight onto her feet. Her legs felt like water, and it was good that they still had the rest of the mesa to ascend before they needed to walk anywhere. Erend was still catching his breath, puffing hot air against her throat, and so she carefully tucked him back inside his trousers and laced them up.

“You can let go of the lever now,” she said with a teasing grin. He kissed her again to stop her laughing.

 

* * *

 

Aloy’s legs were still shaking when they arrived at the top of the Mesa, and it had nothing to do with the alcohol still in her stomach. Erend had checked himself at least twice in the last minute, and had even tugged her dress smooth where it had bunched up a little over her hip. Before the mesh doors opened, he carded his fingertips through her hair and kissed her softly, meltingly.

They made the walk back to the palace at a slow pace, so close they were almost touching. Aloy slipped her hand into Erend’s, squeezing, and almost laughed at the shell-shocked expression he gave her in response, before he smiled and squeezed back.

“It’s a strange time to have a meeting,” Aloy commented as they ascended the stone steps toward the palace.

“Avad’s been like that recently,” Erend replied, frowning, his voice lowered, “he’s been kind of… antsy. _Manic_ , I guess.”

Aloy hummed thoughtfully. As long as she had known him, Avad had had spells of moods - all of them harmless, most of them a little bit irritating. It wasn’t uncommon for the Sun-King to keep strange hours, awake late into the night and napping midway through the day. Aloy had behaved similarly herself while away at Cauldron Rho; she understood what it was like for obsession to have power over you. She couldn’t help but feel concerned for Avad, regardless.

They walked through the palace, Erend leading Aloy down corridors and up a wide, grand set of stairs. The room they were meeting in, he explained, overlooked what had once been the Sun-Ring, and was now mostly used for hosting events.

Before they entered through a pair of tall wooden doors, Erend turned to face her. His fingers slipped under her chin, and he pulled her into a kiss that was soft and tender and made her toes curl. She grinned, and stretched up on her tiptoes, wanting to pull him in deeper and convince him that they should just skip the meeting altogether, like she had wanted to do all night.

Reluctantly, Erend pulled away, his hand falling free of hers. He kissed her lips again, chastely this time, before raising his fist and knocking soundly on the door.

The door opened a crack, and a single eye peered out. The door then opened all the way so that they could be admitted.

The room was vast and lavishly decorated, with intricately carved stone pillars sanding throughout. Like the retired Sun-Ring it stood watch over, the room was circular, and many large polished tables still bore the remnants of dinner.

“Could have done with a real guard, don’t you think?” Erend commented lowly to Marad, who was seated nearby, as he gestured back at the door. Aad, who had admitted them, shut the door swiftly behind Aloy and resumed his post beside it.

“The shadows have ears, Captain,” Marad said, “besides, we have you here for that.”

Erend muttered under his breath something that sounded suspiciously offensive and made his way toward the buffet table. Aloy hovered for a moment and then approached the round table at the centre of the room - the table that was currently occupied by Marad, Vanasha, a military captain Aloy didn’t recognise, and Avad himself. There was an empty space beside the king and another empty space beside that, which Aloy took. The captain she didn’t recognise was eyeing her suspiciously, and she folded her arms on the tabletop, lifting her chin in challenge. When Erend sat beside Aloy and the king, his goblet full, Avad stood to his full height.

“My thanks to you all for assembling so late; I will be brief, so as to not keep you from your rest any longer.

“As some of you may already know, it has been reported that the Carja in Shadow have been sending garrisons out to the Forbidden West. Each time they have returned with more men than those who left, and each of those men has been armed to the teeth.

“I believe they, along with their new allies, are readying an assault on the Sundom, as they did in the second year of my reign.”

Aloy’s eyebrows raised. If she hadn’t been sober already, that would have surely done it; she still had nightmares of burning red light and the demonic metal voice that had wanted her dead. Her arms tightened across her chest, and she sat up straighter in her seat.

“Our forces are skilled, but numbers are still few,” Avad continued, after giving them a moment to digest what he had said, “if we are attacked by a joint army of Shadow Carja and men from the West at their current state, we would hold - but their numbers continue to increase.”

The captain Aloy didn’t know straightened up intently, and Avad nodded to him, inviting him to talk.

“We should attack them first,” he said, “before they finish building their army.”

Erend nodded in agreement, but Aloy frowned deeply. She had already fought in one war, and it had been more than enough for her for a lifetime. Could that be what Avad was expecting of her, by including her in this meeting? Was that the trade-off of living in Meridian, that she was now another person under the king’s thumb?

Avad began to speak before anybody else could interject.

“I do not wish for more bloodshed,” he said, “I still hope that, if we come to terms with our estranged brothers, it will not be on the deaths of hundreds of men.”

Silence fell over the gathering. None of the others wanted to interrupt the king, so it was up to Aloy to do it.

“What _do_ you want to do about it?”

She caught the unnamed captain’s glare from the corner of her eye, and ignored it. Avad smiled, seemingly glad to have been asked the question.

“My desire is this; we build an alliance with the other major tribes.”

Avad laid out his idea to them, his expression alight and determined as he did so. He planned to set up correspondence between himself and the Oseram and the Utaru, and even the Banuk and Nora. He believed that, if they offered attractive terms of trade, mutual support in times of war, and more rights for people of other tribes living in the Sundom, that they would be inclined to accept his proposal in return for the same. He believed that they might even be inclined to accept purely to help eliminate the threat from the Shadow Carja, as all of these tribes had been victim to the Red Raids.

“Messengers have already been dispatched in order to initialise conversation, however,” Avad said, pausing to consider his next words, “I am not as naïve as I once was. I am aware that the offers will likely be disputed, or outright rejected. Until we know more, the preparations to further fortify the Sundom against this threat will continue.

“Tomorrow, we will reconvene to discuss strategy. For now, that will be all.”

Almost at once, they all stood from the table, and began to filter out of the room. When Aloy got to the door, however, he called her back. She shared a glance with Erend, who indicated he would wait outside with a nod of his head, before she turned, and approached the king.

Avad had sat back in his chair, all of a sudden looking a great deal more tired than he had done when he was addressing them all as a group.

“My apologies for keeping you longer, you must be tired from travelling,” he began, gesturing at the seat beside him. Somewhat warily she sat, and he continued, “you must be wondering what military preparations have to do with you; you are, of course, not a citizen of the Sundom, and you are not in my employ. I cannot call you to arms like I can my soldiers, and while you have been incredibly compassionate towards the needs of my people in the past, I am aware that you are not obligated to provide assistance. That being said…”

Aloy felt the tension harden in her gut like a stone. She wasn’t there to fight, which must mean-

“I have no ambassador to the Nora. The distrust of the Carja and of the Sundom still runs deep in the Sacred Lands, despite my efforts to the contrary.

“I have no right to order you, Aloy, however I must ask: would you be willing to act as an ambassador between your people and mine?” He asked, his eyes fixed intently upon her. This close, it was clear that he was raggedly tired, and under pressure. “The benefits of an agreement such as this would benefit all of us.”

Aloy sat back in her chair, almost too stunned for words. There was no chance that the Nora would ever accept an alliance with another tribe, much less with the Carja, and the son of the mad King.

“I’m not the right person for this,” she said carefully, “I’m not an ambassador, the Nora would never listen to me.”

“They came here to fight the demon machine, did they not?” Avad pointed out.

“They believed me to be a blessing from their goddess,” Aloy argued, “they don’t believe it anymore.”

Avad watched her closely, eyebrows drawn in contemplation.

“There is nobody better suited for the task, whom I trust to get it done,” he said, “I would ask that you consider my request, and give me your answer in a couple of days.”

 

* * *

 

 “I can’t believe he asked me to do that, like it’s nothing, like-“

“Aloy,”

“Yes?”

“Do you want to do this later, or?”

“Oh, sorry,” she said. She resumed the rhythm she had been in just moments before, rolling her hips back and forth, his cock buried inside her. Erend groaned with pleasure, and his head fell back against the headboard, his hands tightening on her hips.

“It’s just… it’s _crazy_ ,” Aloy exclaimed, after they had finished, laying by Erend’s side. Their arms were bent at the elbow and crossing each other at the wrist, palms together in the air. Erend’s fingertips were brushing against hers, and against her palm and her wrist, and she stared almost unseeing at it while her brain processed Avad’s request. She turned her head toward Erend.

“You’re quiet,” she said accusingly, “you don't think it’ll actually work, do you?”

Erend inhaled slowly, and exhaled in a rush. He laced his fingers through hers, and squeezed her hand in his.

“Well, it’s not the first time Avad’s come to me with a crazy idea.”

Aloy blinked. He had a point, but to her, it sounded like comparing Watchers and Bellowbacks.

“Rebellion might be easier than convincing the Nora to work with other tribes,” Aloy muttered, eventually. Erend pulled her hand to his mouth, kissed the back of her knuckles. His coarse facial hair brushed her skin, and he let their hands rest on his collarbone, just under his jaw.

“Isn’t that just another kind of rebellion?” He asked, and Aloy turned to look at him again.

“That was almost poetic,” she said, deadpan, “where did that come from?”

“Sobriety.”

“You had at least three cups of wine tonight.”

“That’s practically being sober.”

Aloy rolled her eyes, smiling all the same, and turned her head into the pillow to sleep, his pulse beating steadily against the back of her hand.

“I still don’t think it’ll work.” She argued sleepily, yawning widely in the middle.

“Doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Satiate me.


	3. Morning, Interrupted

"Damn the sun," Aloy grumbled thickly, turning her face further into her pillow to avoid the piercing beams of light shining directly into her eyes..  
  
"Don't get caught saying that," an equally exhausted voice rumbled from behind her. Aloy smirked and batted away the wandering hand that was creeping upwards over her ribs. The linen bedsheets rustled loudly in the peaceful quiet of the morning - or early afternoon, probably - and Erend's arm snaked around her middle, pulling her close.   
  
"What do you want?" she asked with mock exasperation, the corners of her mouth twitching. With great effort, Erend raised his head from the feather pillow, squinting blearily against the rays of sunlight coming in through the window. He eyed her chest, where the sheets had fallen away and pooled at her waist, before lifting his gaze to meet hers, his iron-coloured irises a mere sliver peeking out from behind dilated pupils. His thumb lightly brushed the underside of her breast, and he licked his lips. Aloy resisted the urge to grab his hand and make him touch her properly.   
  
"Well," he said, at length, "seeing as we're both already naked..."   
  
"And seeing as we both have work to be doing-" she reminded him, stopping abruptly when he palmed the breast he had been teasing. She pressed her lips together to stop the pleasured sigh in her throat from bubbling up, toes curling reflexively.   
  
Erend's smirk disappeared when he dipped his head to her other breast, teasing her nipple to a hard point with his lips and tongue. Aloy closed her eyes and dropped her head back, arching into him. She started to feel hot, and craved more, but instead carefully tugged on the hair at the back of his head.   
  
"Avad-"   
  
"Will call if we’re needed," Erend interrupted her, muffled against her skin, "he'll survive the day without us."   
  
Aloy made to argue further, but he closed his mouth around her nipple again and she moaned breathily, her fingernails biting into his scalp. He gave a light, teasing suck, and his hand finally drifted away from her breast and down her side. He gripped her backside and squeezed, causing her to arch her back toward him again.   
  
"So," he said, after releasing her nipple from his mouth and propping himself up on his elbows, "you can choose to spend a day sweating your skin off in the sun, or, you can spend a day sweating your skin off while I do that thing you sounded like you enjoyed."   
  
Aloy used the hand still embedded in his short hair to yank him down and kiss him hard. He laughed in his chest, pulling her body flush with his even as he loomed above her, his weight pressing her down into the mattress.   
  
Aloy pulled away, gasping.   
  
"Don't stop," she warned.   
  
"Don't plan to," he responded, tugging one of her legs around his hips.

Unlike in the elevator the previous night, their coupling that morning was unhurried and relaxed. Erend was the first to finish, and brought Aloy to completion with his mouth and fingers while she squirmed under him.

“You should have days off more often,” Aloy commented with a pleased grin, stretching languidly, after Erend had cleaned himself off of her belly. She scratched her fingers through her tangled hair and paused, glancing over at the bedside table.

“Where’s my Focus?” She asked, somewhat frantically.

“On the table downstairs,” Erend said, his voice muffled in the pillow again, “you were still pretty drunk when you took it off; you held it up and said to it ‘don’t watch; we’re about to get naughty’.”

Shamefully, Aloy remembered doing it. At the time, with Rho able to contact her, and with Sylens still a possible voyeur, it had seemed like a good idea.

“Well, we _were,”_ Aloy replied, “and I wasn’t drunk by that point; I was just tired.”

Erend snorted. “Remind me to see how many rounds you can go when you’re _not_ tired, if that-“

He was interrupted by someone pounding on the front door downstairs. At first, he suggested they ignore it, but it soon became clear that the visitor wasn't going anywhere. Erend sighed and heaved himself out of bed, grabbing his trousers off of the floor.

 _“This_ is why I don’t have days off more often.”

Erend left to go and answer the door, and Aloy stretched out on the bed. It felt like forever since she had last felt so bonelessly relaxed, and given her conversation with Avad the previous night, it might be a while before she felt it again - if she agreed to participate in his harebrained scheme. She decided to relish it while she had the chance.

It didn’t last long.

Immediately bored, and realising whoever it was at the door wasn’t talking loudly enough for her to eavesdrop, Aloy threw her dress back on over her head and followed Erend down the stairs. The look on Aad’s face alone when he caught sight of her over Erend’s shoulder, wearing the same clothes as the night before and a head of sex-hair to go with them, made it worth it. Carefully hiding her grin, Aloy slipped her Focus back onto her ear.

_‘Good morning, Doctor Aloy,’_

“That’s close enough, I guess,” Aloy said, stepping into the next room so that she wouldn’t be overheard talking to herself, “seems like the signal range is enough to reach Meridian after all. Sorry I couldn’t test it sooner,”

 _‘No apologies are necessary,’_ the Cauldron’s voice said, _‘since your departure yesterday at seventeen-fifty-one, I have printed a herd of ten_ Equidae _and an additional group of two_ Utahraptors, _at a rate of one machine every one-point-two-five hours,’_

Aloy frowned. Rho had created just ten Striders and two Watchers in two thirds of a day. Production was slowing down again. “When were you last rebooted? Three days ago?”

_‘Correct,’_

Aloy clucked her tongue, and sat back on the wide sofa Erend had in the main room of his small house.

“Are you working on anything right now?”

 _‘An additional_ Utahraptor _is in my production chamber, and is eighty-three percent complete,’_

Erend came into the room at that point, and she waited to reply until she was satisfied that Aad wasn’t following him. When she was satisfied that he was alone - and when she had pulled her eyes away from his bare torso - Aloy issued orders to the Cauldron.

“Okay, finish what you’re doing and then run a reboot cycle. Report when you’re back online,”

_‘Reinitialisation scheduled.’_

Aloy closed down communication with the Cauldron and looked up into the small cooking area. While she was talking, Erend had disappeared into his pantry and re-emerged with a clear bottle of amber liquid and a serving glass.

When Aloy had first travelled to Meridian, she had been amazed by the finely shaped glass that they sometimes used as drinking vessels - all they used in the Embrace were cups made of clay or wood or salvaged metal. Now, having seen the glass cups mostly used in pubs, she knew what their emergence meant. Erend sat heavily next to her on the sofa, pouring himself a few fingers of alcohol.

“It’s a little early for that, isn’t it?”

“It is if I’m drinking alone,” he said. He nudged the glass towards her, keeping the bottle for himself. Aloy picked up the glass somewhat hesitantly. Her stomach was a little uneven from the drinking she had done night before, and she didn’t think adding more drink to it was going to help much.

“What are we drinking to?”

“The Ealdormen managing to ruin my day without even leaving the Claim, what else?” He replied, his jaw tense. He took a swig from the bottle, and glanced over at her. “Did you get your… thing working?” he asked, gesturing to her Focus, “With the Cauldron?”

“I did.” She said. The reduced production rates were a definite downside, but she could access the controls from her Focus now without having to visit the Cauldron, so it wasn’t anything that worried her. “What did the Ealdormen do?” she prodded, curiosity winning against Erend’s attempted change of subject.

“They’re refusing to come into the Sundom,” Erend said, his tone and inflection making Aloy think the words had come straight from Marad’s mouth and not his own. Erend rolled his eyes and took another gulp from the bottle, “they’re saying that if Avad wants peace, he’s going to have to come to them.”

Aloy tried to imagine Avad travelling to the Claim, travel-weary and coated in dust, and though he must have done it before they had rebelled against Jiran, she found the image hard to reconcile in her head. “Do you think he’ll do it?”

“I _know_ he’ll do it; that’s the problem.”

Aloy tilted her head thoughtfully, resting her cheek on the back of the sofa.

“And if he does,” she began carefully, “you’ll have to go with him.”

Erend paused with the bottle halfway to his mouth. His eyes were fixed sidelong on to her, and she had the distinct feeling that she had uncovered more than he had expected her to. He laughed, once, and shook his head as he took another swallow. Aloy continued to watch him, and prodded him again when it became clear he wasn’t going to volunteer anything further.

“I thought you _liked_ your homeland.”

Erend sighed, and rubbed behind his ear. He was looking deep into the neck of his bottle, and he picked at the imperfections in the glass with a blunt fingernail.

“It’ll be weird,” he said, finally, still not meeting her eyes, “without Ersa, I mean. It was… it was pretty weird last time, at least. Probably be worse with Avad there, too.”

Aloy knew that feeling all too well. She reached for him, tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow in a show of comfort.

“The Embrace was never home, after Rost died.”

The words had taken a while to come to her, and even when they did, it felt like they hadn’t been enough. Erend nodded solemnly, and then clenched his arm so that his biceps bulged under her fingers. Aloy smiled, rolling her eyes.

“Anyway,” Erend said, his tone more upbeat, and voice once again at its normal slightly-too-loud volume, “I need to go in and talk logistics, because nobody can remember the way to the Claim, and it can’t wait until tomorrow.”

Erend, in a complete contrast to what he had said, instead mirrored Aloy’s position on the sofa,  turned towards her, his face close enough to kiss.

“Sorry about this. I honestly did want to spend all day doing the things you like.” he lamented. Aloy smiled, leaning up towards him, suggesting against his lips that he could make it up to her later.

 

* * *

 

 

By the time Aloy had washed and dressed, Erend had long gone. Once again, somewhat begrudgingly, she shimmied out of the upstairs window, dropping gracefully into the street below.

Under her strict instructions to leave the purple-eyed machines _alone,_ the Hawks of the Hunter’s Lodge had to travel much further afield - usually toward Cauldron Sigma, on the edge of the Nora land and so far left to its own devices since Aloy had last visited it months previously - in order to hunt the stronger machines. As a result, and with the previous evening as an exception, Aloy had not seen much of Talanah, and a day without any other work to do meant a day sparring with one of her best friends.

Aloy trotted up the steps to Talanah’s family home, situated not too far from the largely abandoned Hunters Lodge in Upper Meridian, and rapped loudly on the door. The size of a home was a status symbol in Meridian, as much as hunting machines was, and as far as status went, the Khane Padish family was almost unmatched. Thanks to Redmaw, however, Talanah was now the sole resident of her large home, and Aloy often wondered how her friend coped with the crushing loneliness it must have made her feel.

Crushing loneliness that was evidently being filled by her girlfriend - her girlfriend, who had answered the door with a sullen expression on her face. Inwardly, Aloy braced herself. Ylma had moods, and while the previous night had been a favourable one, it had clearly ended in the time since Aloy had seen her last. Ylma, unfortunately, often did not like Aloy in the slightest. Aloy grit her teeth; she was used to people not liking her, but this wasn’t someone she could just say anything to. If Ylma wasn’t trying to be civil with her, it was up to Aloy to make nice, if she wanted to keep Talanah’s friendship.

“What?” Ylma snapped.

It did not go well.

Minutes later, scowling forcefully enough that people were actively jumping out of her way in the street _(good!)_ Aloy was honestly debating whether or not to break back into Erend’s house or pay for an inn, when she heard her name being called from across the square.

Talanah jogged up behind her, already in her training gear.

“Sorry,” Talanah said, “I don’t think she had the best first impression of you,”

Aloy rolled her eyes. Never mind the many impressions since, of course.

“Doesn’t matter,” Aloy said, instead of the biting response she wanted to give, “you’re here now; let’s go beat up some training dummies.”

Talanah glanced at her, and Aloy caught her cheeky smile out of the corner of her eye.

“You’re eager today. Is somebody leaving you restless?”

“Not like how you’re thinking.”

They rattled down the side of the Mesa in the elevator, and Aloy tried very hard to not look at the spot where Erend had held her up. Her shoulders itched.

“Your night was probably more fun than mine. I had to listen to a Sun Priest talk about the ‘radiant bonds between men and their wives’ for an hour,” Talanah complained, face twisted into a grimace, “An hour, Aloy.”

Aloy shook her head. She wouldn’t have lasted as long without saying something to get herself escorted out, that was for sure. Perhaps that was why Vanasha had ‘rescued’ her, and taken her to the Oseram party - she couldn’t be trusted not to start arguing with the holy men. At least, down in the Maizelands, her arguing had been drowned out by other people.

“I’m pretty sure I lost a week’s worth of shards to Galand,” Aloy offered, “not sure he remembers it, though.”

Talanah snorted, “I warned you that your card-face was terrible.”

“It’s a shame you weren’t there to stop me.”

“It is,” Talanah agreed. They filed out of the elevator and headed towards the training grounds, Aloy feeling antsier all the way. Without hostile machines to fight, she worried that her skills were going to go blunt, and she wasn’t about to waste resources by getting Rho to print her something to fight. Sparring with Talanah, or with anyone who would fight her, was nearly all that she had to stop herself from getting soft.

Not that Talanah would go easy on her, anyway. By the time the sun started to sink down towards the horizon, Aloy was drenched in sweat and sporting a couple of fresh bruises, and was pleased to notice that Talanah was the same.

Though her body was focused on the training, and the tiredness under her skin, Aloy couldn’t steer her thoughts away from the Sun Palace, and Avad’s fantasy. Perhaps he thought that the Oseram Ealdormen would be easy to ally himself with. Perhaps he even though that the Nora Matriarchs would be easy, once they had pried themselves away from their homelands. To Aloy, it was all too much to plan for, too many little threads that could easily cause the whole thing to unravel.

“Do you know anything about the Forbidden West?” Aloy asked as she caught her breath. Talanah seemed momentarily taken aback, and glanced westwards towards the setting sun.

“Only the stories they tell children in the temples… why?”

“What kinds of stories?”

“Deserts like the one between the Daybrink and Sunfall, but ten times as vast. Whole tribes of people gone mad, and machines worse than any we've seen.” Talanah replied after a moment, shrugging noncommittally, before turning her sharp eyes onto Aloy. “Are you thinking of going there?”

“No, nothing like that, I just… wondered why it’s ‘forbidden’,” Aloy muttered, turning her staff around in her hands, watching it sweep through the air.

“Sorry,” Talanah said, “but whatever’s out there can’t be good, if the sun goes there to die every evening.”

Aloy pursed her lips in thought. Was this how desperate the Shadow Carja had become? Had the loss of their leaders - HADES, Helis, and even Itamen - driven them to seek an alliance with the only remaining option?

Like the machines disappearing - could Aloy be at fault for this, too?

Talanah clacked her staff against Aloy’s, the hit reverberating up her arms.

“Head on your shoulders,” she ordered, “we’re not done yet.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I made up 'scientific' names for the machines. I'm sorry they're dorky.


	4. About Face

Meridian had been a strange place, after Hades’s machine army almost reduced it to rubble.

People that had once been divided by wealth and rank spent months working side by side in the dust. At first it was to rescue the survivors, then to recover the dead, and then finally to restore the city itself. The process had taken months - years, even - and it was still going on around the Sundom, but Meridian had always been the first priority.

To Aloy, the sight was phenomenal, and very welcome - she abhorred any kind of social division, and seeing the masses come together to work towards a shared cause was truly uplifting for her, in a time when she desperately needed uplifting.

More than anything, the memory that stuck with Aloy of that time was of the Nora themselves. Without the luxury of the Sacred Lands’ abundant resources allowing them to keep to themselves - or, even, just being out from under the All-Mother’s watchful eye - they had mixed and mingled with the Carja like Aloy could have never imagined. She had fully expected her tribe to keep to themselves, and stubbornly refuse interaction with outsiders. She had been right, where it came to the older Braves, but her contemporaries had had no difficulty mixing.

It was with this experience fresh in her mind that she had left Meridian alongside the Nora, and made the long trek to the Embrace on foot, truly believing that there had been a monumental shift that would change the tribe forever, for the better. She saw a future where she wouldn’t make her journeys alone, where her people wouldn’t condemn those who dared to delve into the past, or hold back those who thought outside of their oppressive walls.

It wasn’t until they had arrived in the Embrace, still torn from its own battle against the Eclipse, and Lansra demanded Aloy’s Seeker’s emblem be returned, that the dream had come crashing down around her.

Not that she had stopped doing just as she pleased anyway; with or without the emblem, she soon left the Embrace on the back of her Strider, returning months later with an ancient spherical pendant around her neck. None of the Braves on duty had denied her re-entry. The only real brush with ostracism she had endured, since becoming a Brave, was when she had been Outcast under the angry gaze of Lansra after the machine disappearance, with Teersa’s death fresh on her conscience.

Except, Teersa was not dead.

Teersa was weakened, and blinded, by her illness, but she was as stubborn as Aloy herself, and had not succumbed to it. Aloy had learned, as she escorted a herd of placid Striders towards the Embrace, that Teersa’s first desire upon waking had been to pardon Aloy for what had happened. The Nora couldn’t deny the wish of a high matriarch, especially not one who had come so close to death.  
Aloy was, again, no longer an Outcast.

Honestly, all of the going back and forth had given Aloy an extra ounce of skepticism when dealing with her tribe - not that she had dealt with them a lot since delivering the machines to their gates. She didn’t even know if the machines had been accepted into the Embrace and left alone as she had instructed; the tribe easily could have scrapped them for parts just as they had done to Aloy’s own Strider.

Whatever they had done with Aloy’s gift, there was less than no chance of the Nora being willing to participate in anything that drew them out from behind their walls. The fact that they had done it once before, when she had asked them to go to Meridian, did not mean they would do it again, however it was probably that very thing that had Avad convinced his plan would work.

Aloy paced on one of the many outer landings of the Sun Palace, waiting for her turn to see the king. It had been more than a full day since Avad had talked to her alone, and Aloy still hadn’t given her answer. She didn’t want to delay it any longer; the quicker she distanced herself from it all, the better.

Marad appeared, his hands folded together in the small of his back. He lead her to see Avad, again, past the line of waiting Nobles who whispered about her as if she couldn’t hear.

Avad was in worse spirits than he had been the last time Aloy had seen him. He had lost weight in the months following the resurrection of the machines - as had most people - due to the lack of food to go around. The feast for Itamen’s birthday had been the first show of extravagance since the machines had first started to disappear, and while it had put the colour back in everyone’s cheeks, the king losing weight was an indication that the hardships were far from over.

“It delights me to see you again so soon, Aloy.” Avad said with a vocal flourish, and a smile just for her, “I hope you are bringing good news; every other message I have received today has brought disappointment.”

Faltering only slightly, Aloy shook her head. “Sorry, Avad. I think I’m about to disappoint you some more.”

The smile disappeared, and Avad nodded, resigned.

“You do not wish to involve the Nora,” he said, “I admit, I was advised that you would not take easily to the idea. I cannot deny that I hoped you would change your mind, given time.”

Avad sighed, and the smile returned, smaller than before. “I suppose it will be much easier to gather in the Claim if there are only two tribes involved.”

“Two tribes?” Aloy repeated, perplexed.

“Yes, unfortunately. The Banuk consider themselves outside of our disputes, as they are not governed centrally as others are. The Utaru were interested, but they hail from the south, and will not journey as far north as the Claim while they are still untrusting of the Sundom.” Avad leaned back in his chair, surveying the horizon with narrowed eyes, “It will just be myself and my guards and the Ealdormen.”

Aloy stared out across the city alongside him. Avad was a good diplomat, and a strong leader, but if he went to the Claim essentially alone, Aloy did not see him emerging with a good deal for the Carja. She knew enough of the Oseram to know that they would take as much of an advantage as they could in both hands, especially if it was justified by the bloody history of the Red Raids. Avad would be taken for everything he was worth, if he wasn’t laughed out of the Claim first.

“It’s not enough, is it?” Aloy asked quietly. Avad shook his head.

“No, it is not.”

Worrying her lip between her teeth, Aloy folded her arms across her chest. She had some sway with the Banuk, but what was one or two Weraks against the will of the whole Conclave? They would never change their minds just because she asked them to. She had never dealt with the Utaru, never having had reason to travel so far south. There was a third option - build her own machine army, and see how the Shadow Carja liked it - but she didn’t think she could get the Cauldrons to print enough machines in time to fight off the renewed threat by the time they would be on Meridian’s doorstep.

Inwardly she groaned, closing her eyes.

“I’ll do it,” she said, “I’ll go to the Nora.”

Avad exhaled, and put a hand atop hers, where they were clenched tight in her lap.

“It is alright, Aloy,” Avad said kindly, “I do not wish to make you do something against your will. There will be another way to join forces with the Oseram- it just needs to be found.”

“Peace is in everybody’s best interests,” Aloy said, trying to convince herself as much as trying to convince him, “I’ll go to the Matriarchs.”

Avad didn’t answer her immediately. And then,

“You are sure?”

Aloy nodded, and Avad smiled again, truly this time, and held her hand in both of his.

“Thank you, Aloy. You are doing me a great service.”

“I am,” she said, grimacing, “but I know the Nora. It might be worth coming up with that other way to convince the Oseram, just in case.”

Not long after the conclusion of her conversation with Avad, Aloy left the Sun Palace in search of lunch, shaking her head the whole way.

What had she gotten herself into?

Agreeing to go back to the Embrace and be a part of the ridiculous scheme had been the last thing she wanted, yet there she was, trying to figure out how to even approach the topic with the Matriarchs.

She haggled for her lunch - a few sunfruits, and a fresh loaf of bread - and sat on the edge of the city walls, overlooking Meridian village below. So far, she had decided that the best way to attempt to persuade the Matriarchs to participate would be to use the same arguments that had convinced Aloy herself. Peace was definitely a worthy cause, but was it enough to motivate the Nora, now that their walls were rebuilt and fortified?

Down in the surrounding desert, a herd of tamed Broadheads milled around in the sand. Sitting around after deciding to do something was decidedly against Aloy’s nature, and already she was itching to be back on the trail, even if she wasn’t the biggest fan of her destination. Waiting for other people to make their own arrangements - arrangements she should really be involved in, if not for her impatience making her temper short - had never been something that she was good at. As a result, she had a lot of restless energy, and no idea what to do with it.

In the village below, Aloy spotted a familiar silhouette, with a very familiar hairstyle, and smirked.

Suddenly, she knew exactly what to do with all of her extra energy.

 

* * *

 

  
Getting Erend’s attention was easy. Keeping a hold on her patience while she waited for him to get away from his men was more of a challenge, and she stuck to him like a shadow while she followed him into his house.

As soon as the door closed, Aloy pushed Erend up against it, kissing him hard. Her hands roamed his chest, tugging at the fastenings to his armour - something she had become proficient at since their first few ventures months previously. The heavy leather and metal fell to the floor, thudding loudly at her feet. His bracers and her leg wraps soon followed, when they were about halfway up the stairs to the bedroom. She would have to remember to not trip over it all later.

They reached the bedroom in record time, and Aloy started working on the ties to Erend’s trousers. Erend seemed to have other ideas, grabbing her backside in both hands and pulling her body flush with his, moaning into her mouth. His hands trailed upwards, underneath the top layer of her shirt, and the kiss broke so that he could lift it over her head.

“You wear… too much,” he growled, pulling her close again and mouthing the soft, sensitive skin beneath her ear. She shuddered and dug her fingers into his thick upper arms, and he untucked her tunic from her skirt waistband and shimmied it upwards. It soon joined her shirt on the floor. Aloy untied her skirt fastenings and walked backwards towards the bed, pulling him along with her by his waistband, stepping out of her skirt when it fell. His hands felt like they were all over her - squeezing her backside, touching her waist and her ribs, grabbing fistfuls of her hair - and she shivered with pleasure. She fell back onto the bed, taking him down with her, and they collided with a soft grunt on the solid mattress.

His hand wormed its way into her leather leggings, and before she could say anything, she felt his fingertips push roughly into her. She moaned and squirmed, kicking her leggings off while he made his way down her torso, leaving wet open-mouthed kisses in a trail on her abdomen. He dragged her to the edge of the bed and settled between her legs, and just as she threw her head back on the mattress, he froze.

Erend yelped, pulling away from her as if burned.

“You’re bleeding!” he accused. She frowned at him, and rose onto her elbows. The fingers on his right hand were streaked pinkish-red.

“So?” she replied bemusedly, “it’s only mother’s blood.”

“It’s only- _fire and spit_ ,” he cursed, finding a cloth to wipe off his fingers with, “a little warning would have been nice.”

“I didn’t know you were going to freak out about it,” she grumbled. Sensing that the mood was slipping through her fingers, she added pointedly, “isn’t the intestine-penis-sheath for this kind of situation?”

“It’s for not getting you pregnant.”

“Well, clearly, it worked,” she said impishly, “I’m here, not pregnant. Come and mate with me.”

“Aloy,” Erend said, as he lay beside her on the bed, his head propped up on his arm, “you’re gorgeous, and I would like nothing more than to spend all of my lunch breaks having sex with you-”

“I’m sensing a ‘but’,”

“ _-but,_ the last thing I’m going to do is put my dick into something that’s actively bleeding.”

Aloy snorted, “I wouldn’t say it’s actively bleeding, more like… passively dripping.”

“Wow, that makes such a difference,” Erend drawled, laughing, “‘dripping’. That’s a great mental image. I’m not gonna be able to get hard ever again.”

“That’s fine,” she replied with a coy smile, “you can use your mouth,”

“ _Not_ going to happen.”

Aloy huffed and threw her head back on the mattress again, this time in frustration. Erend stroked her arm with the backs of his fingers, and she could see him out of the corner of her eyes, watching her.

“I’ll make it up to you,” he promised, pressing a kiss to the freckles on her bare shoulder. Aloy huffed again- when would he get the chance to do that? In the Claim?

“Oh,” Aloy said. That reminded her, “there’s another meeting tonight. Avad wanted me to pass the message on to you.” She looked at Erend with curiosity, “I didn’t think he knew about us?”

“I haven’t told him, doesn’t mean he hasn’t figured it out,” Erend replied, “I thought you’d decided you weren’t gonna be part of these meetings anymore?”

“Yeah, well,” Aloy muttered, “I kind of un-decided.”

Erend drew his hand away.

“You un-decided?”

“Yep,” Aloy said, “I went in with clear but firm let-down worked out in my head, and ended up agreeing to it all anyway. I’m going to try and get the Nora to the Claim,” she rubbed her eyes, already exhausted with it all. “It’s much further away than Meridian, so I doubt they’ll agree to it. I couldn’t say no to Avad right after the Banuk and the Utaru had, though, and he needed an answer. I just didn’t think my answer would be ‘yes’.”

“The Nora in the Claim. Won’t that be a sight…” Erend said absently. Aloy turned to look at him, her eyebrow raised, and he got back to his feet.

“I better get back to work,” he said, plucking her skirt off of the floor and lightly tossing it to her, before leaning down and kissing her soundly on the lips. “I’ll see you later.”

Erend left, and for the next ten minutes while she slowly dressed herself, she heard the tell-tale shuffling of leather and metal from downstairs and knew he was doing the same. Her face was drawn into a frown, and as she heard the front door bolt shut, she couldn’t help but wonder if he had been driven off by something she had said.


	5. A Busy Break

By the time any of the captains started to agree on the finer details of the mission, Aloy had stopped bleeding.

A whole week had been spent without, in her opinion, any noteworthy progress to show for it. She had been duty bound to endure it all - every meeting, every heated argument, every day of hope that she might finally be able to get on the road, and then the disappointment when she once again fell into bed in her rented rooms without any clear end in sight. It had been years since Aloy had had so much downtime without a near-fatal injury to go with it, and she was starting to suspect it was all a conspiracy to stop her from leaving.

Erend, of course, swore up and down that each of his adjustments to the plan were necessary, and that the feather-headed idiots in charge of guarding the Sundom every day did not know what to expect of the Claim, but Aloy’s patience was wearing thinner than Carja silk. She had been so restless over the past week that she was ready to just up and leave with no plan and her word that she would see them in the Claim in a month’s time.

Instead, all of that restless energy was directed towards her Focus, and towards Cauldron Rho. Aloy had been poking around in the programming, and she wasn’t quite sure how she had pulled it off, but she had managed to configure Rho to automatically reboot whenever machine production rates dropped too low for her liking, and to log the reboot time and date for each instance so that she would be able to have a look at it all upon her return. After some more thought, she added the condition that there could be no more than two reboots per day - the last thing she wanted was for the Cauldron to get itself into a reboot loop and halt production entirely.

Hopefully, making the same changes to Cauldron Sigma on her way past wouldn’t take too long, now that she had an idea of how to do it. There might even be a way to copy the changes over, like how she had copied the override data into her spear and Focus from the facility beneath Sunfall - like how Sylens had made his own copy - she would just need to figure out a method of doing it.

Luckily, she thought, as she watched the Carja captains squabble amongst themselves, she had enough time to think. Unluckily, however, Aloy had chosen to wear one of her Banuk outfits that day.

The last time she had worn the day’s particular outfit had been before she and Erend had started seeing each other, and at the time, she hadn’t failed to notice how his eyes kept falling to her hips and the strips of blue cloth that swayed side to side while she walked. She had learned what desire looked like, even if she had had no personal experience with it, and it wasn’t news to anyone that Erend wanted her. He had been suggestive since their first conversation, something that had never wavered (even if it had gone over her head for a long time), yet she had still felt a swell of pride at how captivated he was when he thought she wasn’t paying attention.

As it turned out, his fascination with those strips of cloth had not dampened, even though he had gained an intimate knowledge of what lay beneath, and Aloy could feel his hungry eyes following her every time she stood to refill her water.

It was incredibly distracting.

“I don’t understand why we are agreeing to cower in the Claim like children,” one of the captains exclaimed, drawing her out of her thoughts. The discussions between the king and the nobles - the people who were going to fund the mission - had almost ended, and they had opened up to the lesser captains in the Carja military, who would have to cover for the absence of half of the city guard and Vanguard. Avad himself was not due to attend this particular meeting, and the arguments and insults were being hurled around like sling bombs without him there to inspire restraint. 

“The Nora girl controls the machines,” another said flippantly, directed at Erend and Marad rather than to Aloy herself, “can’t she just use them to defend the city?”

“I give the machines orders.” Aloy corrected, before anybody else could answer for her, “I control them about as much as you control your mouth-“

“Which isn’t a lot!” Someone else piped up unnecessarily. Laughter rang around the table, and Aloy rose her voice to speak over it.

“Those machines keep us all alive. They’re not designed for war; they’re designed to heal.”

“ _‘Not designed for war,’_ ” a deputy mocked, “every man dead in the Sun-Ring didn’t die from healing, girl.”

“If I move them, it will be to get them out of the line of fire, not put them further into it.”

The guard leaned forward, trying to stare her down. She lifted her chin defiantly.

“Then why are you here?” he asked,

“What do Carja matters have to do with a Nora savage?”

Aloy levelled the Captain with an unimpressed stare.

“Maybe if you could do your jobs well enough, you wouldn’t need a _Nora savage_ to hold your hand.”

Noise exploded from the opposite side of the table, the captain jumping from his chair so fast that it screeched across the floor.

“Insolent-!”

“Enough!” Marad yelled, his normally reserved voice loud over the din. Immediately the soldiers fell quiet, though the captain still stared at Aloy with wide, angry eyes, breathing hard.

“You are all here at the request of the Sun-King,” Marad said, lowering his voice to its usual volume. Someone muttered something and Marad held up a hand to silence them, adding “I would ask you to behave like it.”

For a few moments, nobody said anything. Marad placed both hands, palms flat, on the table.

“We will break for the afternoon meal, and reconvene in an hour.” Marad said.

“You are all dismissed.”

 

* * *

 

As soon as they were away from the meeting room and vaguely out of sight, Erend took Aloy - still seething - by the elbow and steered her towards his office.

“I could just as easily not be here,” she snapped, still going over the argument in her head. Erend handed her a piece of fruit, which she sank her teeth into.

“Proud fool. As if I would move the machines - the _terraforming machines_ \- to guard the city so he can hide when the battle comes.”

“That’s Vardas for you,” Erend said, sat at his desk, leafing through the pile of new parchment placed atop it, “that’s most of the Carja for you, actually.”

“This is just wasting time.” She exclaimed with exasperation. “If the Nora are to get to the Claim before they miss everything, I need to leave. I needed to leave last week.”

“You think they’ll come?”

Aloy paused and folded her arms, chewing on a large bite of the tart fruit in her hand.

“No.” She admitted begrudgingly, “but I said I’d try, so I’ll try.”

Erend hummed, frowning at some of the parchment in his hand. “Vardas was technically right; you don’t need to be here for the planning-”

“Or the bickering.”

“-or that.”

Aloy fumed silently while Erend went over the documents on his desk. She really did not need to be present for all of these talks; her role in everything was to get the Nora to the Claim.

On the back of her Broadhead, Aloy could get to the Embrace in five or six days, she knew. Anything more than that was out of her hands, and it all depended on how long it would take for the Matriarchs to even come to a decision. Even if they agreed, there were preparations to be made - luckily, Aloy knew that harvest time had just passed, so their food stores would be heaving, even with the damage done to the land by the lack of machines. It shouldn’t take too long to put food supplies together.

“It’ll take me two weeks to get to the Embrace and then back up to the north of the Sundom,” Aloy said, “and that’s if I’m alone. If not, it’ll be at least three or four weeks on foot, and that’s not counting the time it’ll take them to make a decision. How long have we got before the Shadow Carja make their move?”

Erend hesitated before replying.

“It’s hard to say; Marad‘s mole has gone quiet.”

Aloy exhaled and folded her arms, leaning against the desk. Erend’s eyes had fallen to her hips again.

“The sooner I leave, the better,” she surmised, “I can get up to Pitchcliff, if you make sure to leave a message for me there. Let me know what’s happening.”

Erend didn’t reply. He was still staring, his gaze following the curved line of her legs.

“My face is up here,” she teased, a single eyebrow raised. He glanced back up at her eyes, and smirked. 

“I’m not looking at your face.”

“I can see that.”

He placed his warm hand on the top of her knee and slid it upwards slowly over her skin, and the fabric of her shorts, the blue strips of cloth bunching up beneath his fingers.

“We haven’t got much time,” she reminded, smiling.

“Didn’t stop you the other week.”

“I was drunk then.”

His eyes cut up to her, eyebrow lifting, his expression bordering on gleeful at her admission that she _had_ been drunk after all. Aloy had a feeling it wouldn’t be the last she heard of it.

Erend’s hand continued to drift upwards over the top of her thigh, beneath the cloth strips, his thumb dipping between her legs teasingly. Aloy kept her lips pressed together and her eyes followed him like a Glinthawk while he touched her. She felt a tingling throb between her legs.

“Fine,” she sighed with mock exasperation. Erend scooted his chair out from under the desk and hastily untied the bulky lower half of his armour. The bulge in his trousers was easily visible, once the armour had been pushed aside, and Aloy swallowed hard. She felt a flush of heat creeping through her, and the tingling throb in her groin was becoming insistent.

Aloy clambered into his lap, her bare knees either side of his hips and her shorts taut. She could feel him tucked under her thigh, hot, twitching, and hard as stone. His hands took her by the hips and he pulled her close, his mouth hot on her throat. She gasped breathily and he hurriedly shushed her, nipping at her lips. He rocked her back and forth and the pressure inside her built higher. Their movements quickly grew more frantic, back and forth in a rhythm as familiar as breathing.

It was awkward in the narrow chair, and with their clothes still in the way he couldn’t actually penetrate her, but just the action of riding him was giving her immense pleasure, and she found she didn’t really care about how the rest of her body felt. Aloy tucked her head into the crook of his head to muffle the noises she made, acutely aware of the roomful of people working on the other side of the door.

Her orgasm hit suddenly, and Aloy shuddered soundlessly through it, her fingernails digging into the wooden chair and her back arching upwards. Erend’s hands tightened on her hips and he grunted in the back of his throat.

Moments passed while she caught her breath, acutely aware of the thin layer of sweat on her skin. Erend affectionately nosed her temple and kissed her cheekbone, patiently waiting for her before chasing his own relief. She could feel him against her thigh, still hard, still twitching, and almost felt bad for what she was about to do.

Aloy turned her head towards him and, holding the back of his head in her hands, kissed him. He moaned, helplessly thrusting up into her. She lifted her hips, as if to resume riding him. Aloy climbed out of Erend’s lap before he could react, and was tugging the hem of her shorts back down when he opened his eyes in confusion. His hands were hovering in the air as if he still held her by the hips. She grinned, and ducked her head to re-fasten her skirt.

“What-?”

“We need to get back upstairs,” she said, smiling at him.

“But…” he said. A glint appeared in his eyes as he understood, and he looked at her with renewed hunger. “You-“  
“I’ll make it up to you,” she promised, echoing what he had said to her the week before, dropping a kiss to his cheek. He growled playfully and made to grab her but she dodged easily. He stood suddenly, bracketing her against the desk with his body.

“I’ll get you back for this,” he said, his voice ragged, and damn if she didn’t feel her blood start to stir again at the rough timbre of it.

“I know,” she murmured. He ducked his head and kissed her, his hard cock pressing into her belly. Part of her wanted to push him down and climb back on top, but more of her didn’t want to get caught dry-humping in his office.

Reluctantly, Aloy dragged herself away. The look in Erend’s eyes told her well enough that she would definitely be paying for it that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve noticed there’s a lot of porn in this so far. 
> 
> Sorry.


End file.
